Title: Left BehindRating: PGCategory: Alt!Livia (vague Peter/Alt!Livia)Spoilers: Season Three, EntradaDisclaimer: Owned by others.Author’s Note: Of course, now that I can play in our righted universe, the muse wants to go Over There. Turns out it is righted but still really messy on that side, too.

She steps back into her life quietly – never missed, never forgotten, no one aware of the sacrifices – and she shrugs away questioning thoughts that creep unwelcome into her mind. She knows reality and her expectations are at odds.

“You seem different today,” Charlie tells her when they’re driving to the case site. “Are you okay?”

Lincoln smirks, gives her a wink. “Crazy people are always okay, right ‘Liv?”

“Right,” she says, and tries to smile, tries to be a part of the moment that’s not hers. She’s home, but she finds she’s playing a cover here now, too.

She tells herself it’s just temporary.

==

At home, there is a message from her mom asking why she didn’t show up to dinner. Frank’s left a note that says you too. Clothes, toiletries, dishes, and food are all rearranged and foreign.

It’s her house, and she feels like she’s just arrived on the other side.

Walter explains the necessity, the deception always his intention, and doesn’t allow room for questions. “She had to believe she was you,” he says firmly, offers no further insight.

It’s Frank who mentions the tattoo, the lack of one, his fingers heavy across the back of her neck. His touch is strange, almost unfamiliar, but she reaches up to put her hand over his.

“I needed a change,” she explains for his benefit. The other Olivia wears her tattoo now, lives in the house she kept, and the thought is sour.

“It’s a new you,” he says warmly.

==

Details from the other side are left out of her report. It’s not wholly intentional – she doesn’t want to dwell on the day to day trivialities, and there are more than a few. The relationship with Peter is excluded deliberately.

It was nothing of consequence, she thinks.

==

A man stops her on the street. “Olivia? What are you doing here?”

“Do I know you?” She has no memory of this man, but the meeting suddenly unnerves her. There’s something about his expression that tells her she should remember him, that this is important.

He looks surprised, then wary. “Sorry, I think I made a mistake.”

He’s lost to the crowd before she can question him any further.

With her descriptions and Astrid’s probabilities, she narrows him down to a Henry Arliss Higgins. She erases the search records, holds his name in her head.

==

They all work – endlessly, tirelessly – and she is injected with bags of fluid to assist in the efforts against the other side (Olivia Dunham is listed on each bag, and she knows what this means).

“It’s us or them,” Walter says to everyone. “They are merely imposters.”

The drugs work in time, incredibly brief moments of transport that go unregistered. There are glimpses of the other side – blurs of color and images that are unrecognizable individually, but together paint a world she remembers all too clearly.

She thinks about Peter, knows there is no saving both universes in the scenario being proposed, and she feigns disappointment at the end of the test.

I realized when I kept writing Alt!Livia instead of Olivia moments that there was some really awesome parallels going on with each of them being back in a universe that never really realized they were gone.

And I think we'll see Alt!Livia's transformation in time; at least, I'm hopeful she will be redeemed in the end!

I really enjoyed this. I love the depth that you brought to Alt!Liv (whom I am actually somewhat fond of? I think. In spite of the whole Peter thing. IDK, she's made from the same Liv, so she MUST be awesome somewhere in there. That's my theory!)

Crap. Hit enter before I was done. EDIT!

ANYWAY! I like the look at her adjusting back to her own universe, and the fact that she lies/omits things on her report. Also, HIGGINS! I hadn't really given too much thought to Alt!Liv back on the other side yet, and now I am thinking ALL KINDS OF THINGS. So yay, excellent.

And you know, here's the thing... I kind of really love Alt!Livia. I mean, they're both Anna Torv so I already have a hard time separating this, but then Alt!Livia was a baddie (and I'm convinced will turn goodie) that fell for Peter, and this INTRIGUES ME SO.

And there's all sorts of fandom hate for her that I suppose I get, but at the same time, I'm like, seriously? She thinks they're at WAR for their universe's very SURVIVAL. It's only after months on our side that she's suddenly going, hang on, isn't there another way? She's a pawn in Walternate's grander scheme, and she's going to start realizing this eventually.

Plus, this is the perfect unrequited love (er, in a sense?) story, and I'm such a sucker for those. ;)

Thank you! I love Altlivia, and I've loved her throughout. She's had some tough choices, and while I don't think they were always the right ones, she's never done them out of malice, so I'm happy to see her treated sympathetically here. I LOVE that she decides not to reveal the success with the cortexiphan. I hope we get more of her this season, and see how her time on our side has affected her, and swayed her judgment.

Yes, exactly! There's just something about Altlivia that I really love - the conflict she's facing, the love she found - and she's a strong character, however misguided, and I'm always all over that. ;)